Elsie Ferguson

Elsie Ferguson was interred in the Duck River Cemetery in Old Lyme, Connecticut. In August 2004, Goldberg announced that she would be reviving her one-woman show on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre. A very wealthy woman with no heirs, and a lover of animals, on her passing in 1961 she left a large part of her considerable estate to a variety of charities including several for animal welfare. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney by pointing to her genital region. Ferguson made her final appearance on Broadway in 1943 at the age of 60 that met with critical acclaim. In July 2004, Slim-Fast, a popular diet shake, dropped Goldberg from its advertisements in response to popular opposition to statements Goldberg made at a "John Kerry for President" rally in which Goldberg repeatedly referred to President George W. Married four times, following her final marriage at age 51 she and her husband acquired a farm in Connecticut and divided their time between it and her Cap d'Antibes home on the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France. The sitcom was cancelled due to low ratings in May 2004.

Despite her wealth and fame and glamorous lifestyle, Elsie Ferguson's personal life had more than its share of turmoil. An ex-singer in a girl group, Mavis was as much of a diva running the hotel as she was in the group’s glory days. Although her voice came across well enough, at age 47 she was well past her prime for fans who wanted to see her as the great youthful beauty she had once been. Whoopi starred as Mavis Rae, the owner of a small New York Hotel (called the Le Mont Hotel). In 1930 she made her first talkie that would also be her final film. She also starred in the sitcom, Whoopi, which began broadcasting in fall 2003 on NBC. In 1925 she made one film only before returning to the Broadway stage. She hosted a syndicated talk show (The Whoopi Goldberg Show) in 1992-1993.

It is considered her best work in film. Goldberg was paired with Jean Stapleton in the CBS sitcom Bagdad Café (with a plot differing from the 1987 movie in several respects), which lasted two seasons (1990-1991). One of these was the 1921 film entitled Forever in which she starred opposite the leading heartthrob of the day, Wallace Reid. She also hosted the Oscars in 1999. In 1921, she accepted another contract offer from Paramount Pictures to star in four films to be spread over a two-year period. In 2001 she won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. She fell in love with Paris and the French Riviera and within a few years bought a permanent home there. She has been nominated for five American Comedy Awards with two wins.

In 1920, she traveled to the Middle East and Europe. In 1999 she received the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Vanguard Award for her continued work in supporting the gay and lesbian community. Elsie Ferguson eventually followed the move west and bought a home in the hills of Hollywood, California. She has received three Golden Globe nominations, winning two. She has won three People's Choice Awards. Many of the films she agreed to do were because they were adaptations of stage plays with which she was familiar. She has received five Emmy nominations. Continuing to play roles of elegant society women, Ferguson was quickly dubbed "The Aristocrat of the Silent Screen." But the aristocratic label was also because she was known as a difficult and sometimes arrogant personality to work with. She has received five Daytime Emmy nominations, winning one.

At the peak of her popularity, several film studios offered her a contract but she declined them all until the widely respected New York based French director Maurice Tourneur proposed she appear in the lead role as a sophisticated patrician in his 1917 silent film, "Barbary Sheep". Following this first film, Elsie Ferguson starred in two more films directed by Tourneur under a lucrative contract from Paramount Pictures that paid her $1,000 per day of filming. She has received two Oscar nominations and won one. Ferguson, noted for her great beauty and as one of the "Park Avenue aristocrats," on one occasion is reputed to have sold $85,000.00 worth of bonds in less than an hour. Goldberg has appeared in 149 films as of October 2002. During World War I, a number of Broadway stars organized a campaign to sell Liberty Bonds from the theatre stage prior to the performance as well as at highly publicized appearances at places such as the New York Public Library. She cemented her status as a legendary comedic actress in 1992 as a lounge singer who is hidden in a convent (and consequently revitalises their choir) in Sister Act. She had a recurring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation as Guinan. In 1910 she spent time on the stage in London, England. In danger of fading from public acclaim, she revitalized her career in the role of a fake "spiritualist" who manages to actually make contact with the dead in the tear-jerker Ghost, for which she won her first Oscar award for best supporting actress.

By 1909, she was a major Broadway star. The majority of the films she made in the 1980s featured her in tough-woman comedic roles (Burglar, Fatal Beauty, Jumpin' Jack Flash), though she regularly balanced them out by performing in family-oriented films (Clara's Heart). Raised and educated in Manhattan, she became interested in the theater at a young age and made her stage debut at seventeen as a chorus girl in a musical comedy. She followed up this performance with a sell-out, highly acclaimed one-woman show on Broadway. Born Elsie Louise Ferguson in New York City, she was the only child of a successful attorney. This performance garnered her an Oscar nomination for best actress in 1986. Elsie Ferguson, born August 19, 1883 - died November 15, 1961, was an American stage and film actress. Goldberg began her film career by playing the character of Celie in the Steven Spielberg directed movie adaption of the award-winning novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

This show caught the attention of Mike Nichols who produced a one-woman show for Goldberg on Broadway, called simply Whoopi Goldberg, which ran from October 24, 1984 to March 10, 1985 for a total of 156 performances. After success as a stand up comedian in the San Francisco Bay Area, Goldberg created a one woman show in 1983 called The Spook Show. She was born in New York, New York. Caryn Elaine Johnson, better known by her stage name of Whoopi Goldberg (born November 13, 1955), is a well-known movie actress, comedian and singer.